Selling gig tickets on eBay? Watch out for Elengo Papacostas…

Ticket sellers on eBay have been scammed by a mysterious figure called Elengo Papacostas, who has purchased festival tickets from them and sneaked the money back using PayPal.

Elengo -who I like to imagine as a dark handsome type in a fedora carrying a guitar case in the desert – doesn’t exist on the UK Electoral roll, but he’s still managed to con people who have been selling festival tickets online.

The scam is as follows: Elengo snaps up your gig tickets using PayPal. Some time later, he/it/them orders a ‘chargeback’ on the payment, which is the facility you can use to get your money back if your goods don’t arrive or are unsatisfactory.

After a BBC Wales documentary exposed the scam, they got a reply from someone claiming to be Elengo, who complained that he received the tickets and it was PayPal’s fault. The plot thickens…

With dozens of victims taking to the Internet to complain about the fraud, PayPal has since closed Elengo’s account. But don’t be surprised if he springs up in another guise. If Stelios Shufflebottom or Regina Felangi contacts you wanting to buy Glastonbury tickets, report it to the eBay police, OK?

At least I think there should be more secured awareness in Ebay, they should really come up to see their customers wishes and needs. Then there should be more payment possibilities, like paysafecard in order not to be forced to gibe numbers of CC or anything else. Easy to get and easy to use. But i’m not quite sure if its going to be like that even against customer needs.